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Bang Up To The Elephant

✖ VICTORIA'S SECRET

Ⅰ. ARRIVAL
You can read all about your character's arrival in the game lore.
The fog that has blanketed the city for a month finally lifts a little - there are days with actual sunshine now! Not many, and the sky is still frequently thick with smog, but every so often light pours through the holes in the clouds. The river that flows from the sea into the city still smells foul, but maybe you’re starting to get used to it.

Walk the cobbled streets and you will find that the city is crowded and filthy, but full of merchants, pubs, and theatres. Vast wealth and extreme poverty exist side by side.

In the center of the sprawling city is a temple with towering gothic spires and huge stained glass windows depicting all manner of beings that might be gods or angels or monsters. You could look for hours and still be finding new figures plucked straight from books of myth and religion. Inside, the main chamber has a grand vaulted ceiling, and dozens of pews line the aisle up to the altar, which is oddly anticlimactic compared to the lavish surroundings: just a plain stone table with a lit oil lamp in the centre. Two hallways branch off on either side of the room: one leads to private baths and a communal kitchen, the other to monastic style chambers with thin beds. Not the most comfortable place to stay, but it’ll do in a pinch!

The High Temple has also reappeared at the edge of the city, with its considerably more comfortable lodgings.

Alternatively you can venture into the city and find yourself some other lodging - every Traveler has been supplied with some pocket money. Just be careful that it isn’t stolen by some street urchin. Travelers can also find an era-appropriate outfit that will fit them perfectly laid in the first sleeping chamber they visit.

Notes:
1. The High Temple and anything you may have stored there is available to all characters this month.

2. Please remember to mark threads appropriately with Content Warnings when necessary.

3. The city greatly resembles Victorian London, and the technology and general way of life is all of that era. Feel free to explore the city! These prompts are a jumping off point - how they affect your character and their development is up to you.

4. Most food is safe to eat, and is consumable by non-human entities. Most. Some of it’s going to be pretty gross or cooked improperly, so be careful.

5. The people in the city are normal humans unless otherwise indicated. Killing them is possible and will affect the colour grading of your Scrywatch depending on the situation.

6. Have fun!

Ⅱ. COME UNDONE
CW: dead bodies, archeological graverobbing.
Somehow, some way, you find yourself with an invitation card:

Lord Trewlaney at Home: the Unwrapping of
THE JEWEL OF THE SEVEN STARS!
Half-past Eight
Unwrapping? How saucy! Or perhaps you have an inkling of exactly what that means.

The invitation gets you entry to a well kept home on the more well-to-do side of the city. There are plenty of servants circulating with food and drink of which you are welcome to partake. Society’s elite chatter and mingle all around you; maybe you fit in, and maybe you don’t.

Regardless, you don’t have to wait very long for the main event. The host of this little soiree - presumably Lord Trewlaney himself, a little man with a weak chin and an impressive mustache - stands at the front of the room and holds his hands aloft.

“Ladies and gentleman,” he says in a clear voice. “BEHOLD! We shall now commence with the unwrapping of this, a fine example of Egyptian mummification, who was once called the Jewel of the Seven Stars!”

A wheeled table is brought forward, covered in a purple velvet cloth. Dramatically, Lord Trewlaney flings it back to reveal a body wrapped in ancient linen bandages. The crowd sighs, and Trewlaney’s eyes scan the crowd.

“Ah, you there!” he cries, pointing at you. Or maybe the person beside you.

“You folk there! Here, come up, my friends! You may have the honour of being a part of history!”

The crowd pushes you and your companion forward with excited murmurs. Soon enough the two of you are beside the mummy, and Trewlaney is handing you a pair of scissors. Up close the body smells of cinnamon and something else, something familiar.

“Reveal its face!” he urges you. And so, you cut.

Much to your surprise what is revealed is not a desiccated corpse, but your own likeness. Before you have time to react the mummy sits up and turns to face the audience, who oohs and ahhs.

The mummy’s lips part and it speaks. What does it say? Something extremely revealing; in plain terms, the mummy reveals something an aspect of yourself that you would rather have kept hidden.

Oh dear! You can shut yourself up, of course, but before you do maybe you ought to consider that interfering with a mummy was considered a surefire way to fall under a curse…

Notes:
1. What is revealed can of course be of any degree of seriousness. Murder? Or do you just secretly enjoy RomComs?

2. Shut the mummy up before it has its say and you will suffer the Mummy’s Curse: bad luck that will plague you for the rest of the month!

Ⅲ. IMAGINARIUM
The sign above the door simply reads Cabinet of Curiosities. How intriguing! And at the very least you can get out of the chill.

Inside there are dozens of wooden cases with glass fronts, each filled with shelves of all manner of objects. Some look expensive and exotic, while others are almost painfully mundane. There are taxidermied animals, wet specimens, fossils, glass eyes, rocks and crystals, pottery, statuettes… There’s a little of everything.

As you peer amongst the stuffed ducks and fossilized plants, you’ll spot something familiar. It’s an object that you recognise as personally significant whether because it’s from your life back home, or because it’s symbolic. It represents a dream or a hope you have for the future.

If you take the object out of the cabinet for a closer look, you and whoever happens to be standing nearby will instantly be transported to a hazy vision of what that lovely dream is. It won’t last forever - indeed, maybe only a moment. Depending on what that hoped for future is, you might have some explaining to do.

Notes:
1. All futures are something hoped for. They may be completely unrealistic and bittersweet, but they are something wanted and not feared.

Ⅳ. GARDENS
CW: mind altering substances.
If there’s one spot within the city where you might be able to find some refuge from the dank scent of ocean rot and the sour smell of body odour, then it’s going to be the Gardens. A jewel toward the west side of the city, you will find a greenhouse containing all manner of tropical plants, and a rose garden with over a 100 different types available for you to enjoy.

But why stop there? There are also areas where you can stop and have tea with a friend. They even have those little sandwiches with the crust cut off! They have cucumber, egg, and cream cheese. Each of these has a different effect: cucumber sandwiches will provide a mild sense of euphoria, while the egg will give you a lot of energy (and maybe some gas). Cream cheese will make you very relaxed and prone to oversharing. There are also perfectly regular cakes and biscuits available, as well.

Maybe you’re feeling a bit more somber. In the northeast end of the park there is a secret pet cemetery with over 300 tiny tombstones paying tribute to the tragic losses of many much-loved pets. The area is disused, overgrown with ivy and ferns. Sitting there evokes a sense of peace.

Prefer to see some living wildlife? Fear not, the park seems to attract several different types of songbirds which makes it a hotspot for birdwatching. There are binoculars available to use for that purpose. Or you could use them to peer into the city’s seamy underbelly. Just don’t get isolated and weird about it.

Sometimes I can still hear his voice...

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"I have taken a lot of naps," Gideon says. No, that's not what kidnapping is. She knows what kidnapping is. But it's the low hanging fruit and still makes her smile.

She tucks the key down her shirt, getting a few goosebumps for her trouble. It's the safest place she knows to store something that small. Not that it's of any use here. "Especially if you can't remember leaving the planet or time passing or being bested or ambushed and kidnapped." How many times had Gideon looked up that tight passage Cohort shuttles flew down to deliver supplies or godly summons or whatnot? "Did you come over to the island with the swim suits and free food and surfing and dancing? Like it was one big party, ignoring or including the people nearly drowning as best fits what you think of as a party? There were so many hot women, I was gonna be mad if I were dreaming." She's not spent much reflection on that, her first island.

Gideon looks around them. "Do you want to go back?" Gideon asks. Not that this place is some heaven. It isn't so simple as all that. But it's still been a better more peaceful life than she ever knew at home.

It's a bad joke, but it's her description of the beach party island that really has him squinting at her. Swimsuits and hot women? Never heard of it. "Are you certain that part wasn't a dream?"

At her question, though, he gives his head a slight shake. "I want to go forward. I want the choice to be there, or not, as it suits me."

Gideon stares back, blinking as little as possible. The vibe coming off Sephiroth feels so like Harrow in that moment. It explains how they both do and don't get along so well together. Ignoring the stick thin arms and legs and yeah, perhaps Sephiroth is more like Harrow than Silas Octakiseron. Gideon, however, knows what she sees. So long as this whole wild place isn't a dream... "Yep," she declares. Feeling a little charitable, Gideon adds, "Harrow came there from the undead island or whatever." Other people have mentioned that island, so she's fairly confident on it too.

With effort, Gideon doesn't look around them, so as to ask what direction forward is. Sure, she said 'back' to where he came from, but it's hard to ask about the even more unknown wherever the fuck else that exists is. Or how one would get there. "Choice to go where you want, check," Gideon says. She can agree with that one. "That'd be a new one."

"Undead island?" Sephiroth repeats. His very first island had undead on the beach, but that's hardly how he would describe the place as a whole. "Are you saying that Harrowhark visited this 'party island' following Carcosa? Before the flowering isle?"

Sephiroth has never had an abundance of choices, but he doesn't care to reference how long that's been the case. "These islands are lacking in choice, certainly."

Gideon has never been to the island in question, so she's hardly an expert on it. Zero-th Island so to speak. "Yeeeeeees," Gideon draws the word out, not sure why this is so surprising. "That was the island we went to the 'flowering isle' from. Guess it's true I don't remember seeing you there. And you stand out." Even though he is not a hot woman.

"It is very 'get in the boat, losers, we're going to [insert island here],'" Gideon agrees. "Which technically is a choice. Pretty shitty one, but..." She shrugs. "We still get to choose what we do here, and the Fourth Island let us go shopping. I think I have more possessions now than I've ever had back home."

"It's the first I've heard of anyone visiting an island that I haven't seen myself." Not that he assumed there weren't any, or that other Travellers weren't visiting them, but until this moment, he thought that everyone in their cohort had, thus far, travelled consistently to the same islands. This is new information.

"We cannot choose not to get in the boat. I've tried it. I don't recommend it." Especially not if she wants to keep all of those new possessions of hers.

Gideon scratches her head. "Did you check out the one with the giant creatures people were calling dinosaurs?" Gideon asks. "That one seemed optional." She waves vaguely in the direction of boat and island both.

Her attention focuses on the fact Sephiroth tried not getting on a boat. Gideon's never had a reason to stay somewhere. Sure, she'd revisit pretty much any of the islands if it comes up, but she hasn't liked any of them enough to want to live there for all her days. Also it doesn't seem like it'd get Harrow home. "What happened?"

"...no." At her gesture, Sephiroth glances in the direction of the harbor, even though they're inside a building and it absolutely can't be seen. An optional island? Perhaps he gave up attempts at surveilling the docks too quickly.

He gives his head a shake and looks back at Gideon. It wasn't that he wanted to stay on Carcosa; it was a deliberate effort to determine the consequences of noncompliance. "I lost consciousness, and awoke on the ferry anyway, without any of the belongings I had collected, including my clothing." He means all he had was the robe they all arrived in, and assumes she'll understand that.

"Ha," Gideon snorts. "Sounds like that entropy field thing except you know..." She waves a hand, "You don't watch it happen." It still sounds better than the entropy field because it doesn't seem to require a human battery. She's not sure what it's like on the other end, but the human battery end sucks. Yes she has done it more than once. Voluntarily.

She's sure that, like Harrow, Sephiroth can walk around nude with the demeanor of as much dignity as ever. Gideon isn't sure it works, but she was too busy going unconscious when Harrow did it. Alas. "We've both got our swords now. Good incentive to get on a boat."

"Entropy field?" He has no idea what she's referring to.

But no, Sephiroth isn't troubled by nudity. Not that Gideon would take interest in his public bath appearances.

"Unfortunately, yes. I wouldn't care to be without a proper weapon again."

"It was two things at once, but basically gets rid of whatever enters until it isn't even dust," Gideon explains badly. "Between not super caring and actively not dying, I don't remember the details. You can ask Harrow if you want." Even if she scowls at the description Sephiroth has to go by to ask.

"If you wanted to think poorly about it, I think it's more a mixed bag, it does provide a reason to do the things, go to the places, et cetera," Gideon waves. Not that this shop is a bad thing. No, Gideon quite likes the idea of that vision, whatever it is. Something they can work toward? Because going back together would be even better than Harrow going back alone.

Sephiroth nods. And look, he's just going to ask her about 'entropy fields,' not whatever non-explanation Gideon just offered him.

"It's coercion," Sephiroth states. "Which I suppose is technically a reason, but I'm not going to look on it positively."

It's a valid point. Gideon isn't going to argue otherwise. Sure beats some other ways people have done that in the past. It's a low bar. Gideon simply appreciates the relatively extended period of time with relatively few threats to her life.

"If someone were to go about this—The Ancient or someone else—what would be the Sephiroth approved way of going about it?" Gideon asks.

"An approved way of bringing people to these islands?" he wonders, skeptical. "Explain the situation and allow people the choice of it. The choice to participate in these little games or not, the freedom to leave at any time."

He frowns, glancing in the direction of the door. "And the people who live on these islands... I think at times they're only props. I don't care for that."

He doesn't like anything about how this is being done.

Gideon nods along. He's right. There should be a choice besides losing all your shit and ending up naked. Even if it's a "continue on to your afterlife" option, it's something. That might get a lot of people because people hate dying. Or if there's an issue bigger than them (the Ninth House dying off, Gideon thinks) or someone else they want to save or something. There's a lot of rewards to dangle, and someone who can do all this surely has access to them.

It surprises her that while she agrees she doesn't react by digging in her heels and refusing anything and everything. The vision could be dangling a thing in front of her. She wishes all powerful beings would get over their 'we will tell you nothing; figure it out' schticks like that ever really works for most people. It helps that the Ancient answered her question. It helps that she's been doing good, props or no. They feel pain and worry, joy and relief. Gideon can't help but treat them like people. She won't do what the Reverend Father and Reverend Mother did to her.

"We're obviously not getting the full 'explain the situation,'" Gideon says, "I wonder about the choice of it. If there's a way to leave if you figure it out. Like maybe we seem as simple to the Ancient as the people who live on these islands seem to us. Maybe there is some exit we stumble around not seeing because we're in the maze not above the maze or whatever. If you want to leave—to go home or to go somewhere else—then lets look for it. For you." And for Harrow if that's all it takes.

"What, and she's incapable of communicating on our level well enough to explain?" Sephiroth doubts that. If there is some way out, the Ancient doesn't want them to find it so easily. Even if he were to believe what little she has told them, he's seen very little in the way of 'progress' among any of them. He's been here nine months and the color of his ScryWatch hasn't changed. Either way, is it really a choice if you don't know how to make it?

But that last addition surprises him. 'For you.' "...you want to stay?"

"You try explaining physics to bacteria," Gideon says. Or theorems to a cavalier. Camilla might get it; Gideon does not. Not that she thinks Sephiroth or anyone here is that mindless. Only that their ability to tell what the fuck is going on is a lot less than the Ancient's. That if they could see how she sees, they'd see the exit. And the hands off teaching style means 'walk yourself to the door.' It might be its own kind of fail, but it doesn't make keeping them here malicious. 'God' didn't see an immortal murderer crashing his lyctor party, so what can the Ancient miss? How closely is she watching?

She blinks. "I don't know," Gideon says. "Not forever. Probably. There's stuff more important than my sword that I want. I'm not sure she's offering, but I'm not sure she's not offering." She sighs. "I don't know what I'd be going back to." By which she means Harrow. Just because she outdid Harrow in round one in the 'dying to protect each other' games doesn't mean she's won round two.

"Perhaps if I had magic capable of getting into the mind of a bacterium, I might have some idea how to do that," Sephiroth says dryly. Of course he doesn't think it can be done because bacteria aren't sapient, but the Ancient has been in their heads too many times not to understand them better. "She brought us here, she can provide an exit we could utilize."

He studies Gideon for a moment. "Because you think you died?"

"Have you asked the Ferryman for a ride?" Gideon asks, just to cover their bases. She doubts it's that simple, but he is the one lugging them around from place to place. There isn't exactly a high level of traffic between islands. Not that everything makes complete sense as an island, but well... sometimes places are weird.

"That's more complicated than you'd think it could be," Gideon says. "I don't know. I thought I had. I'm not entirely sure anymore. No one teaches how shit works when you're dumped in the River in the wake of a Resurrection Beast. I didn't even know those things existed until I was fighting one sort of. But I'm in no hurry to be dead if that's the case. You?"

"I haven't, but others have," Sephiroth says. Well, he can't quite recall if it was a proper asking or more of a panicked demand on encountering their new circumstances, but he doubts the wording matters.

"I'm not dead." He's as certain of that now as he ever has been, but this time he offers a shrug and a small explanation: "I was hardly in the midst of battle when I was brought here. I was reading reports. And, whatever happened to you... You aren't dead now, are you?"

Manners are a solid attempt. They can go a long ways. Even if they're missing some piece of the puzzle. Something that looks duh in hindsight. Like the fact no one spared one year old Gideon Nav on purpose; in her defense, no one expects to be able to survive something that wipes out a whole generation. Not unless they know more than Gideon did growing up.

"Hello Not Dead, we must be related," Gideon grins. Sephiroth wasn't in the room where she said almost the same thing. Except better. Not Fucking Dead. She doesn't know how she feels about the dad behind the dad joke, but it's still funny.

She shrugs. "Here I'm not," Gideon says, "No fucking clue about back home. What with the whole jumping in the River of the afterlife thing. Even if I am, who knows, maybe the Ancient can do something about that." She got a few points for not killing Harrow and a handful for making Harrow believe that color exists.

What are dad jokes? Sephiroth doesn't know any dads. As usual, her sense of humor falls flat with him, and he just gives her an odd look for that one.

"My point is that you aren't back home right now. You're here, and you're alive. If you want to return, you need only ensure you do so in a manner that preserves that." He still votes for killing the Ancient and taking over from her, but whatever works.

"Oh good, only that," Gideon says. Which, again, doesn't cover Harrow, her personal weirdly obsessive bone nerd. Things can be said simply, we're going to Canaan House so I can become a lyctor that are about as far from simple or easy as can be. Also, stupid as it may be, Gideon doesn't want ensuring she returns alive to have some universe fucking over consequences. She wants to be alive so fucking bad, but not at any cost. It never has been, no matter how many times she fantasized about things happening to people, even the times she meant it.

"This is also the longest I've gone without someone trying to kill me," Gideon points out. "It's a nice change of pace."

As far as Sephiroth is concerned, she's already solved the problem of being dead, so it seems inconsequential. The real problem is leaving, and being in control of what that entails.

But, he shrugs. "I don't know. At least that was straightforward." When someone tries to kill you, you get to try to kill them right back, and then you have a dead body. There's a comfortable simplicity in that.

Actually interacting with people is... complicated.

For how much of her childhood was devoted to trying to join the Cohort, Gideon hadn't reflected on what it would mean. The war had been a far off thing, some fixed point in existence. The Nine Houses had been at war possibly the whole myriad. The details... fighting and killing an actual person, even a horrible shitty person, is vastly different. Different than fighting bone constructs and resurrection beast heralds. It's someone exploding into pink mist, not so much as a bone shard intact. It's someone exploding like a grenade went off in their chest with bones and blood and other parts of anatomy lessons spewed everywhere. It bears no resemblance to the simplicity of wielding a sword.

"I doubt much of anything is as simple and straightforward as being challenged to a duel," Gideon says. She sighs. "Even when it is, there's always afterward. People have opinions on dead bodies. And ramifications. And people being idiots about it. Unless you're the one who dies, you get to walk right into that."

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